Identifying core foods for total diet studies: a comparison of four different approaches

Abstract

Total diet studies (TDS) are recognised as a cost-effective approach in estimating dietary exposure to chemicals in food. It has been advised that candidate foods for inclusion in TDS analysis should represent a large part of the typical diet to estimate accurately the exposure of a population group. To date a variety of approaches have been used to determine which foods should be included in a core TDS food list, with no agreed method. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare four of these approaches by creating TDS food lists for adult populations in Europe using summary statistics data from the EFSA Comprehensive Food Consumption Database. Both a food group approach and a total diet approach were employed, and foods were selected for inclusion in the TDS food lists if they met the criteria as defined by consumption weight and/or a 5% consumer rate. Using all four approaches the representation of the diet across the TDS food lists was > 85%. The food group approach showed a slight advantage in diet representation, but produced considerably longer TDS food lists in comparison with the total diet approach. The addition of a 5% consumer rate to both approaches had little impact on results. In conclusion, the total diet approach may act as a more cost-effective approach in comparison with the food group approach while still achieving comprehensive results in the creation of core TDS food lists.

Keywords:

• total diet studies
• food lists
• core foods

Acknowledgements

CRA-NUT was responsible for ‘Food Sampling: Food Products Collection’ work package. UCD was responsible for ‘Analysing Food Consumption Datasets’. N. F. C. D. conducted the analysis for the paper and has no conflict of interest; the analysis was supervised by B. A. Mc. N., A. P. N. and C. C. K.; A. T. was work package leader for the analysis presented; J. V. was coordinator of the TDS-Exposure project; C. T. and A. P. H. observed the analysis closely over the course of the study. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Funding

The research leading to these results received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under Grant Agreement 289108 (Total Diet Study Exposure). This publication reflects only the authors’ views, and the Community is not liable for any use made of the information contained therein. ANSES coordinated the project.